


In Parallel

by shadow_wasserson



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Genocide Route, LV, Sans boss fight, Timelines, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 00:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13915734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_wasserson/pseuds/shadow_wasserson
Summary: This is the worst of all possible worlds.





	In Parallel

**Author's Note:**

> This piece used to be part of "Drabbletales."

_"Get dunked on."_

__  
It is well-known that the crueler the killing blow, the faster one gains exp. And to attack someone who has surrendered, who trusts you, that is one of the cruelest kills of all. Normally one would gain a single LV, or maybe two, from a murder, but...  
  
"If we were really friends, you won't come back," he whispers to the bleeding, dying body.  
  
Sans gained three.  
  
As he sits down, shaking, watching the human fall to the floor, he knows better than to hope. Any minute, any second now, it will all fade away and the fight will begin again. He knows better than to hope for Snowdin, for his brother.  
  
Nothing happens. How long does this take? How long until this timeline ends and becomes just another blip in the data?  
  
Then the red soul floats free of the broken child, glowing softly. It's not resetting. Why didn't it reset?  
  
God, did he really do it? Did the human give up?  
  
Sans reaches towards the human's soul. It's the size of an apple, and it's warm. It feels alive. It's strangely beautiful.

It shatters to pieces even as Sans' hand closes around it.

Sans blinks, and picks up a single red shard, now cold and inert. Is.... that normal? Does that usually happen? With only bits of hints of shadows of memories, he wouldn't know.

He still exists. The timeline still isn't resetting. But human souls are supposed to last, not shatter, so why...

Icy realization grips him.

He'd been wrong the whole time, about how this worked. The human wasn't resetting. They weren't rewinding or erasing the timeline at all. They were copying it, from the save state. Imperfectly, and occasionally with bits 'sticking' to old timelines, dragging slivers of consciousness in their wake, but copying it all the same.  
  
The timelines weren't in sequence, they were _in parallel._

It's not going to reset. There's no oblivion, no erasure of memory. He's stuck here, while the human goes off to fight another Sans.

Sans is sweating. He'd have to sit down, if he weren't already sitting. Instead, he starts to put his head in his hands, then jerks back at the feeling of still-wet blood on his hands. He had been _very_ close to the human, when they died _._

Sans scoots backwards away from the human's body, mind reeling. How many times had the kid done this already? How many timelines had they left to rot? How many Sanses had they left alone? More than twelve, that was for sure...

He leans his back against a pillar. The human's gone. They're gone, and Sans is still here. God, he's still here.

He's so tired.

 


End file.
